House Passes Murphy’s Bipartisan Legislation to Provide More Supportive Housing for People with Disabilities

WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 22, 2009 – (RealEstateRama) — Within months of Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) visiting Chamberlain Heights in Meriden to announce legislation to provide thousands of new affordable housing units for low income, disabled individuals across the country, today the House of Representatives passed the bill, 376-51.

“In Connecticut, it’s clear that we have a significant shortage of housing for extremely low income people with disabilities.  We have the know-how in Connecticut to fix this problem and achieve the goal of helping people with physical disabilities and mental illnesses live independently – all we need are the tools, which this bill gives us,” said Murphy.

Murphy has heard from affordable housing experts and mental health professionals in Connecticut about the need for more affordable housing options for people with disabilities that also provide optional services that support independent living.

Working closely with those same experts, Murphy introduced legislation with Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert (IL-13), the “Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2009,” to update a national housing statute often referred to as “section 811,” which is the only federal housing program dedicated to helping extremely low income citizens with serious disabilities live independently in a community environment with a support system.  Section 811 needs to be updated because the current program is not meeting the increasing demand for supportive housing units.

Murphy’s legislation will make several important changes to the 811 program:

• Allocates funding to triple the number of supportive housing units built with federal dollars;
• Speeds up the process by allowing states greater involvement in the approval of projects;
• Provides incentives for federal supportive housing money to be partnered with state and private money in order to spread federal dollars out to build more supportive housing units;

Murphy’s legislation, H.R. 1675, is named after the late Frank Melville, a longtime resident of northwest Connecticut and the first chair of the Melville Charitable Trust, which has been a leading source of funding for supportive housing for more than fifteen years.

Murphy’s bill must now be considered by the U.S. Senate.